


i'm gonna be ready this time

by SafelyCapricious



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Crack, F/M, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 01:56:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3673206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SafelyCapricious/pseuds/SafelyCapricious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SHIELD falls. Again. Or, double again? It falls four times – first HYDRA, then “real” SHIELD, then shape shifting aliens, then alternate universe body doubles – before it finally, finally, gets back on its feet. It is limping along and a bit sad, and more than a bit pathetic at first, but it gets there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm gonna be ready this time

SHIELD falls. Again. Or, double again? It falls four times – first HYDRA, then “real” SHIELD, then shape shifting aliens, then alternate universe body doubles – before it finally, finally, gets back on its feet. It is limping along and a bit sad, and more than a bit pathetic at first, but it gets there.

 Jemma stays with it the entire time. Well, for a certain definition of ‘with’, there is the whole brainwashing episode, and then the period of time when she’s locked in a cell for five months and then two months, later. (The aliens were much better kidnappers than the alternate universe body doubles, which was potentially why it took her so long to break out.)

 By the end of it all, nearly everyone has betrayed the team at least once. (Hunter being, surprisingly, the only exception. By the time the alternate universe body doubles had been vanquished, it is a joke that to find who is legitimate, you just have to follow Hunter. He doesn’t mind that joke. He does, however, take offense to how surprised everyone is when they realize he’s literally the only teammate who hasn’t betrayed them.)

Oh, there were decent reasons for the most part – brainwashing, PTSD, terrible childhoods, stolen candy, middle child syndrome and so on – but it still happened.

It makes it much harder to hold the betrayals against someone.

Ward is allowed back onto the team between the shape shifting aliens and the body doubles. (He is maybe a bit put out that all of the more recent betrayals are allowed back on the team before him, but he gets over it when Fitz makes one of the DWARFS follow him around with party music to celebrate his return for three days.)

And then he dies. Well, not immediately. Two years after he’s let back on the team, shortly before the body doubles, he ends up sacrificing himself for Bobbi and dying.

Which is, perhaps, why Jemma jumps to the obvious conclusions when she sees him sitting in her kitchen, working through the last of her Raisin Bran. (She knows it’s the last because she specifically portioned it out and it’s Thursday and she does her grocery shopping Thursday evenings.)

The obvious conclusions being, obviously, that he’s an alien or a body double or whatever the newest threat is going to be. She sighs, rubs the bridge of her nose, activates the distress signal in her bunny slipper so they’ll have something to track potentially and slouches over the kitchen table, staring mournfully at the bowl of cereal.

“Really, faux-Grant? You had to eat the last of my cereal? That’s just rude.” She pouts for a few minutes longer, as he crunches away, before pushing herself away from the table and going to see if her fridge has magically summoned something else for her to eat other than bread, butter and a single lemon.

She sighs again, making sure it is very loud and very annoyed, and accepts that she’s having toast for breakfast. She shuts the fridge and turns around – and promptly jumps about a mile into the air when she finds Grant standing directly behind her. “Holy mother of – why would you do that?”

He arches an eyebrow and smirks, not stepping back even though he’s invasively close, and she takes a moment to just look at him. Whoever, or whatever, he is – he looks like Grant. Completely. It’s kind of nice, actually, to see him in three-dimensions again.

But, she still has work if he’s not planning to kidnap her – she’s hoping he’ll still let her go to work if he brainwashes her, she’s volunteering today and she’ll feel guilty if she can’t make it – so after a long moment of drinking him in, she gently pushes him back and makes her way to the toaster. He looks surprised, but lets her move him. She grabs an extra two pieces of bread when she realizes he’s finished off  _her_ cereal. She points at the bowl and he, obligingly, carries it to the sink and cleans it.

 She sits across from him at the table, only mildly irritated that he’s in her seat, and slides the toast to him. She munches and waits to see if he’s going to talk. Maybe this batch of whatever-he-was was mute. That would be a nice change – easy to tell who was who.

She’s halfway through the second slice when he finally speaks. “You know, I was expecting more yelling.” She’s forgotten what his voice sounds like, and she unabashedly closes her eyes to enjoy it. Her chewing slows and she opens her eyes again. She missed him.

She puts her toast down and dusts her hands off. “I could yell, if it would convince you to let me go to work without kidnapping or brainwashing, or whatever else is on your agenda for me today, faux-Grant.”

His smirk widens and he asks, “Faux-Grant?”

 She shrugs and waves a hand through the air before she catches sight of the time on the microwave. She shoves the last of her toast into her mouth and mumbles, “Until you give me something else to call you, yes.”

 He doesn’t stop her when she heads into her bedroom to get ready.

He’s still sitting at the table when she comes out, straightening her sleeves. He slides one of her travel mugs across the table and says, “It’s probably not drugged.”

She laughs, despite herself, and grabs it as she heads out the door. He doesn’t try to stop that either. She doesn’t try it until she’s at work. It’s not drugged but it is exactly how she likes it. She puts in a call to the team and invites Hunter for lunch the next day, just in case she’s wrong.

He’s shirtless and doing pushups in the middle of her living room when she gets back.

She tilts her head, crosses her arms and leans against the wall to enjoys the view, shamelessly, for a long moment, before asking, “So, why’d you do it?”

He barely sounds out of breath, although he’s covered in sweat, still working out, and has clearly been at it for a while, when he says, “I had to sort myself out for a while, get some perspective.” He finally pushes himself up and stops, coming to his feet in a smooth motion.

She can only meet his eyes for a moment before she pointedly looks away. “And what, you couldn’t use your vacation days?”

He steps closer to her and reaches out to gently hold her arms. He isn’t even trying to sound apologetic when he says, “Something would’ve come up, I would’ve had to come back early because there were body snatchers or pod people or something.”

It is a hard point to argue with, so she just scowls instead, and then kicks him in the shin.

He lets go of her arms and swears, before turning surprised eyes to her and asking, “Are you angry?”

 She scoffs and waves her hands through the air. “Angry? Who wouldn’t be angry! You ate all of my cereal and faked your death for three years!”

He pouts at her and rubs at his shin. “Two and a half years, at most.”

She scoffs and pokes him in the chest as hard as she can to emphasize her point – it kind of hurts her finger but she refuses to show him pain. “That. Is. Not. The. Point.”

 He captures her hand and holds it against his heart before putting on his best puppy dog eyes and saying, “I missed you the most.”

She narrows her eyes and tries to pull her hand back. “Do not try to sweet talk me, Grant Douglas Ward.” She finally gets her hand free and pokes him again, just because she can. “You are going to have to do so much groveling you should invest in knee pads.”

 He arches an eyebrow and his smirk turns into a leer. She has her hand slapped over his mouth before he can say what she knows is coming, and she levels him with a look and says, “Don't you dare.”

He just wiggles her eyebrows in response and then licks her palm.

She scowls harder.

**Author's Note:**

> My writing tumblr can be found [here](http://capriciouswrites.tumblr.com/). Be not afraid. 
> 
> Let me know what you think!


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